A to Z Challenge: Z is for Zzzz...

This year, I'm participating in the insane awesome A to Z blogging challenge, which entails posting EVERY SINGLE DAY during the month of April, except for Sundays. Each day's theme corresponds to a different day of the alphabet: 26 days, 26 posts. I'll be blogging each day this month on some aspect of my current work in progress (WIP).

Z is for Zzzz...

Which is what I'm going to do for a nice, long time after today! Congratulations, A to Z-ers: WE MADE IT! Any bets on how many people will use the same 'word' for today's posts? I'm guessing at least two other people, personally.

Believe it or not, I do have a snippet related to this topic: it's another brandest of the brand new bits from the lifetime in India. Refresher for all newcomers (are there any at this point? If so, I salute your perseverance!); if you know all of this already, feel free to skip to the next paragraph: soul #1 is Emma, the the daughter of a British Civil Service official, living with her father in India around 1890; and soul #2 is Aryahi, Emma's mysterious new Indian maid, who doesn't act like a servant at all, is far too beautiful, and who seems much more interested in Emma's father's military intelligence than she does in cleaning the house. Oh yes, and who also happens to be an incarnation of the Hindu goddess Durga.

Today's snippet comes at a moment very early on in this story, when Emma is allowing herself a moment to rest (or 'zzzz') before she continues working on her monumental list of tasks for the day. It's a bit long, I know, but it's the LAST DAY of the challenge, so I thought, why the heck not? It really is brand new - I free-wrote it as a brainstorm a few days ago and haven't even read it again since - and I'm also experimenting with POV, with mixed results, as you'll see:

It was the third most important day of her life, but of course Emma didn't know that until many years later. Had she known, she might have dealt with the new maid quite differently; but then the future is always much clearer once it has already passed. Exactly what she would have done differently is something only Emma herself could say, and she refused to speak of the events recounted on these pages for the rest of her life.

But that was much later. On this particular day, when everything was about to begin, Emma leaned against the door frame of the parlor and allowed herself a moment of stillness. All around her, the house chattered with an urgent list of items that needed her attention; she closed her eyes, and listened instead to the city. Sound streamed through the window, bright and clear and hot as the sun: tea sellers hawking their sweet, spiced wares in strident Hindi and broken English; the clatter of wheels and hooves on the packed streets; bicycle horns; shouts and laughter and arguments in at least five different languages; in other words, all of the churn and chatter and joyful misery that was Calcutta. 

Emma told herself often that she quite liked this new life in India, and so she was surprised, that hot spring morning, to find tears of homesickness in her eyes as she rested against the door. She brushed them away with quick, impatient hands, and straightened. There was plenty more to do; no time, she thought, for mooning about London. She had thought this many times over the last few months, and would think it many more in the months to come, and indeed if she ever stopped to wonder why she had to tell herself so often not to long for England, and to enjoy her new life, she would have been quite puzzled by her own emotions. Luckily, Emma was at that time exceedingly stubborn and determined, and so blissfully ignorant of her own internal life that she was able to escape the depression and frustration that such awareness of her feelings would have brought. She therefore lived in a state of relative contentment, marred occasionally by unexplained bouts of dissatisfaction and anxiety, which naturally irked her exceedingly, but always passed. That is, she had been able to remain ignorant and content, until this exact spring day, at this exact hour, which brings us back to the reason for this story.

Emma shook herself out of her silly stupor (or so she called it), and walked briskly down the hall to her father’s bedroom, where the bedclothes had to be aired, and the windows cleaned, and the fire set for the evening, which were only the first in a long mental list of her chores for the day.

Imagine her surprise, then, when she walked through the door and found all of these tasks already completed. She stopped, frowning, until she saw the slight form kneeling by the fireplace, placing the last of the kindling in the freshly-swept hearth. Then her brow cleared.

"Good morning," she said, "You must be the new maid." 

Thanks to the very smart Nicki Elson, I realized that I forgot to add a closing statement. Oops! Here 'tis! Congratulations, A to Z-ers!! We made it! A huge THANK YOU to the creators and hosts, who I know worked much harder than everyone else - and considering how sleepy I am, that's truly amazing. You guys rock! I'll be back on my regularly scheduled Wednesday posts next week. Thanks to everyone for coming by!

A to Z Challenge: S is for Sneaking

This year, I'm participating in the insane awesome A to Z blogging challenge, which entails posting EVERY SINGLE DAY during the month of April, except for Sundays. Each day's theme corresponds to a different day of the alphabet: 26 days, 26 posts. I'll be blogging each day this month on some aspect of my current work in progress (WIP).

S is for Sneaking

...as in, sneaking around: spying, snooping, and generally being sly. Amazing how many 's' words there are for deviousness, huh?

I chose this particular word for 'S' today for the express purpose of posting the brandest of the brand new of snippets, written just days before I wrote this post. I thought it might be stupid ridiculous fun to post something I've barely even read myself!

I think the A to Z Challenge might finally be getting to me...

At any rate, because this is so brand-spanking new, I really have no idea if it's going to end up in the novel at all. I do know that the reason for it will, though.

Before your heads all start spinning, let me explain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up (and points to any of you who got that quote without clicking on the link): this is from my Indian lifetime, where the two souls are Emma, the 18 year old daughter of a British army officer, and Aryahi, their mysterious new maid, who is also an incarnation of the goddess Durga. Aryahi is definitely not in Emma's house to just be a maid, and is also definitely snooping around, so something like this snippet, where Emma catches Aryahi in her father's study in the middle of the night, will happen in the book. I just have no idea if this will be it. Well, read and enjoy (I hope) anyway!

There had been a flash of light – something gleaming, flecked with gold – that woke Emma from sleep, and pulled her from her bed.

“Is someone there?” She stood still in the doorway of her room, her eyes straining to pierce the darkness, but the night was completely, bizarrely black, as if the sky itself had thrown down a heavy curtain over the house, blocking all light. Not even the stars could reach her here.

She heard a shadow of sound, as if someone had opened a door with slow, deliberate care. She shivered.

Emma crept forward, trailing one hand along the wall for guidance. All was silent and still. And yet, her nerves were singing; she knew someone else was here with her, in the thick, unnatural darkness at the end of the hall. She frowned; only her father’s study lay there. Who could be in it in the middle of the night, besides her father? But her father was away, until at least the end of the week; she'd seen him off herself only the day before. 

In the deep black ahead of her she saw it again: a glimmer of light, like the pale gleam of an eye, or a tooth. She drew in a sharp breath and pushed forward, faster now, her hand quick and sure against the grooves of the wall. In seconds she was at the door to the study. She put out her hand to feel for the knob, but her fingers met only space: the door – the locked, sturdy door that only her father had the key to open – was already ajar. 

She eased into the room, her heart in her throat, and paused. She knew she should stop, and wake Manesh, and get him to help her, but some instinct held her motionless, waiting. 

There was another whisper of sound, but lighter this time, as if a tiny wind had swept through the room. And then the air’s strange, heavy curtains parted: the utter blackness lifted, and starlight shone, pale and silver, through the window. 

And Emma could see, not well, but enough. There was another person in the room: a woman, by the slightness of her frame, standing by her father’s desk, her body twisted, as if she’d just suddenly turned towards the door. 

“Who’s there? What are you doing?” Emma whispered.

The woman flinched, and then her body seemed to relax.

“Emma?” came the whispered reply.

“Who is that?”

The woman moved towards her, and her movements were so easy, so curved with simple grace, that Emma knew who it was long before she saw her face.

“Aryahi,” she breathed, and then Aryahi was there. Her skin gleamed in the starlight, and her eyes seemed lit with flecks of gold, and Emma knew she was staring, but she couldn't stop. There was something different about the maid, here in the deep stillness of the night, here where she had no right to be; something certain, fluid; something that hummed with urgency and power. 

“Emma,” Aryahi answered, and then she was close, too close, standing so near that their bodies were almost touching. A thread of heat coiled up Emma’s spine. Aryahi reached up, and curved her palm around Emma’s cheek, and for a moment, Emma was certain she was about to be kissed – and then Aryahi smiled, and was gone. 

Emma stood alone in her father’s study, her heart pounding. 

A to Z Challenge: I is for India

This year, I'm participating in the insane awesome A to Z blogging challenge, which entails posting EVERY SINGLE DAY during the month of April, except for Sundays. Each day's theme corresponds to a different day of the alphabet: 26 days, 26 posts. I'll be blogging each day this month on some aspect of my current work in progress (WIP).

I is for India

...well, maybe. Yes, I'm doing that again. But that 'maybe' is looking more and more like a 'yes', because the basic plot I'm working out for this lifetime, if it is in India around 1890 (although I may change the year), is looking like more and more fun. So E very likely is going to be for Emma, and I really might be going to India. Metaphorically speaking only, unfortunately. I really need to find that rich, generous patron one of these days...

Anyway, my concerns about researching and accurately writing about India - and Indian people - during the British Colonial Era haven't gone away, but the plot is getting...well...too delicious to ignore. Yes, Ava, you were totally right - the whole situation is rife with conflict. Emma, I think, will be engaged to a proper British gent, chosen for her by her beloved dad, and although she's not in love with this fiance, she's happy to be a dutiful daughter, and he seems like a nice enough bloke, and everyone keeps telling her she'll fall in love with him over time, and so on and so forth.

Yes, it's the perfect engagement, and the wedding plans are so lovely and everyone is so happy, and then along into Emma's house comes this strange, compelling, mysterious Indian servant-woman, who doesn't act like a servant at all, is far too beautiful, and who seems much more interested in Emma's father's military plans than she does in cleaning the house.

And poof, now we have all the makings for a truly complicated forbidden love story, between two people who absolutely should not and cannot and must not fall in love - for every conceivable reason you can think of, and then some - and yet who find themselves inexplicably and inexorably drawn to each other, almost as if they'd known and loved each other in a previous life, or even lives...

Now come on, how fun is that?

A to Z Challenge: E is for Emma

This year, I'm participating in the insane awesome A to Z blogging challenge, which entails posting EVERY SINGLE DAY during the month of April, except for Sundays. Each day's theme corresponds to a different day of the alphabet: 26 days, 26 posts. I'll be blogging each day this month on some aspect of my current work in progress (WIP).

E is for Emma 

...well, maybe.

I know, that's a weird way to start a post, but since this book is in-progress, there are a bunch of decisions that I'm still working out. In this case, I haven't decided if I want this character to be Emma, in which case she'd be the daughter of a British Civil Service official, living with her family in India around 1890; or if I want her to be Padma, in which case she'd be an Indian-American corporate lawyer living in New York City in the very near future, around 2050. I do know that the other soul, no matter when this takes place, is going to be an incarnation of the Hindu goddess Durga. That will be the fun part :)

These are the problems you encounter when you're writing a book about the different lifetimes of two souls - too many damn possibilities.

Really, though, I haven't been thinking about this in terms of characters: I've been trying to figure out if I'd rather tackle researching the British rule of India in the 1890s, and deal with all of the subsequent racial tensions and cultural questions and historical accuracy problems, or if I'd rather tackle writing science fiction. See, if the Emma (we'll call her that for now) character lives in NYC in the near future, then I'll be forced to bump another lifetime further into the future.

Every sci-fi writer reading this right now is probably thinking, "SO?! Why the heck wouldn't you do that??" The answer, alas, is that while I read science fiction, I've never written it. Not even a little short story here or there. And...the science part scares the you-know-what outta me. So this one is still up in the air for now.